1995: Vertical Markets

This was the year that Autodesk completely re-organized into vertical market groups, and NAAUG aligned itself with them in its Special Interest Group structure. This gave the organization discipline-specific divisions of Autodesk dedicated to working directly with the SIGs, which resulted in our most successful SIG track ever the following year. Bill Barnes and Paul Jackson were especially key to this alignment and both worked hard to make sure that all the new VPs at Autodesk knew what NAAUG was about and included them in their activities.

Autodesk University ran smoothly that year as well. Areas for unscheduled open discussions were set aside, food courts and chat rooms were established so attendees could benefit by each other's company and expertise, and the curriculum was expanded to meet the last year's requests. This was also a year of tremendous SIG growth, and NAAUG's track of sessions were carefully scheduled so that nothing conflicted with Autodesk's scheduled presentations.

The only real problem NAAUG had during this administration was with its road shows. Although the events went well, the cost of the event was far more than the NAAUG Board had anticipated. At the close of the year, the new Board of Directors not only found themselves in debt, but also with only one-third of the usual amount of financial support from Autodesk.